Cost-Effective Electrification and Power Backup Strategies for Older Multifamily Buildings

A major challenge in California’s effort to eliminate carbon emissions by 2045, is fully electrifying the almost 90% of an estimated 13.5 M existing residences currently using natural gas. Apartments are 29% of California housing, and >50% of housing built annually in California since 2009. Older multifamily housing buildings are often undersized for current decarbonization goals. Units built in the 1970s-2000s often provided only 60A service at each unit, meaning the currently needed minimum 100A service is rarely in place. Most states will face a similar challenge. There is a retrofit problem with these buildings. Current electrical design consistently oversized service for anticipated use. It’s problematic to further upsize services to meet increased loads and code requirements as units are electrified. Converting natural gas furnaces, clothes dryers, and boilers to heat pump technology, gas stovetops and ranges to induction, and even adding an EV charger, represent large but additional intermittent loads to a residence. The current approach of outsized electrical service upgrades would only further exacerbate the problem and result in unnecessarily high costs.

This session will highlight a better solution: combining available capacity for routine tenant needs, with available additional capacity for occasional needs, at less than the cost of the conventional approach. Low-income communities with tenants who are vulnerable under power loss is a clear case for accessible, low-cost power backup approaches. This approach enables participation in cost savings opportunities and the possibility of reducing the burden of power safety shut offs. Panelists will highlight two unique multifamily demonstration projects in Humboldt and Sonoma County.

Panelists:

Doug Davenport, CEO, ProspectSV

David Kaneda, Principal and Thought Leader, IDeAs Consulting

Sean Armstrong, Managing Principal, Redwood Energy